2022 - Student Exchange Report - Korea National University of Arts - Koyuncu Yasemin

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Exchange report of Korean National University of Arts South Korea Yasemin Koyuncu, Animation BA

안녕하세요 여러분!

Teacher: 어떻게 지내세요?

Me: 네!

Teacher *confused*: 어떻게 지내세요?

Me *confused*: 네?

Little did I know that this famous teacher 이규태 (Lee Kyutae) asked me HOW I was doing today and not IF I was doing GOOD today. Embarrassing situations like this became normal during my stay at the Korea National University of Arts in Seoul. But I powered through it and learned quite a few things along the way. In this report, I want to share my experiences and give you some tips and tricks so you can save yourself from embarrassing or even stressful situations.

Part I: The Preparation

Preparing Documents

Before I dive into all the fun stuff I did during my exchange I want to start from the very beginning. After all, the preparation for this exchange took longer than the exchange itself. I started in the summer of 2021 with my portfolio. I cleaned up my previous works and created some more that would fit the portfolio’s flow. I had around 14 or 15 pages as a pdf and a minute-long showreel (including Intro & Outro, it can definitely be shorter!). Make sure you don’t miss the application deadline in September and hand in your portfolio at the end of October. You will need to write a motivation letter, fill out a learning agreement and an “Antrags”-form. From KARTS you will firstly only receive an application form. After that, you need to gather a lot of documents. I sent all of this:

  • K-Arts Application Form
  • CV
  • Language proof of Korean (A2)
  • Language proof of English (Matura Diploma)
  • Official transcript of records
  • Passport
  • Portfolio & Showreel
  • 2 recommendation letters from your teachers
  • Study confirmation

After sending in all the documents at the end of October the waiting time took until the middle of December. With the confirmation, there came more documents from the side of KARTS. This is what they sent me:

  • Arrival information including where I will do my quarantine
  • Business Certificate and License of KARTS
  • Certificate of Admission
  • A semester plan of the Animation Department
  • Dormitory Questionnaire
  • Housing Application
  • Important information for successful exchange students

Experiences at the Korean Embassy

Little did I know that the Certificate of Admission and the semester plan would cause me so much trouble. I was checking the website of the Korean embassy in Berne, and they wrote that they might need the original Certificate of Admission for the visa. I wrote that to the exchange coordinator of KARTS Dianna but during that time the positions got changed and the new coordinator Jungmin didn’t know about this. In the end, thankfully my Certificate of Admission arrived 1 day before I visited the embassy.

I got my appointment at the embassy last minute with only 2 weeks to spare before my flight would take off. The reason? On their German website, it said that you didn’t need an appointment for your visit. On the English one, however, they did write that you needed one. To be sure I wrote at the beginning of January if I could have an appointment on the 10ths of January. But they were booked out until the end of the month and the visa needed 2 weeks until they issued it. My flight would leave on the 14th of February. I was really panicked because if one of your documents were wrong, you needed to come again, and your visa would arrive later. I got my visa only 4 days before my de- parture. So, I recommend booking an appointment at the embassy as soon as you know you got admission. Also don’t forget to buy your flight tickets as soon as possible.

Semester Program

For the semester program, they gave just the names of the courses and the teacher. Below the program, they explained only about 4 of the many courses they had. It was hard for me to choose at first since I didn’t know what to expect. Thankfully, an exchange student from KARTS visited HSLU so I asked her about the curriculum. She recommended me to write to some of the teachers personally, asking what they teach during the semester since most of the time the name of the course doesn’t reflect the actual course. But thanks to her, I was able to avoid classes that would have not suited me!

Packing

The last thing that was on my list was packing my suit- case. I was allowed a 23kg big suitcase and an 8kg carry-on plus a laptop bag. My biggest regret was bringing too much stuff there. I brought way too many clothes and even bought more in Seoul. But then again, the temperatures in Korea were between -10 to 38 degrees. So, my tip is to bring clothes you can layer with and after March, the weather is nice so you won’t even need a heavy jacket anymore. Also, take a big towel with you since Koreans mostly use hand towels to dry off their body. And finally, pack deodorant! It’s very expensive there so better take enough of it. Since Korea is also known for skincare don’t bring too much of it with you. Perhaps better: go there with half a suitcase empty.

Part II: Quarantine and Covid-19

Quarantine experience in Seoul

Since my exchange was during corona, I also had to search for a lot of rules and regulations Korea had during that time. I found a lot of Information on the embassy website. I also needed to arrange a quarantine place by myself since the school didn’t want to be involved in that. I learned through Tik- Tok and the internet that if you have no Korean phone number or a Korean credit card it would be hard to order food during your quarantine. So, I chose a service that would provide me with 3 meals a day. But a week before leaving the quarantine rules changed and instead of 10 days, there were only 7. I sadly didn’t get refund for the last 3 days except for the food.

During my quarantine time, I felt like a hostage since the only time I was able to see a bit of Seoul was during my car ride to the hostel and then to the PCR test centre. The other times, I looked out of the small window in my room and observed the people walking in the street underneath me.

I also needed to track my temperature and my health state every day on an app. It felt like, if I didn’t do it, they would come and knock on my door, since they knew where I lived. Around the last few days in my quarantine, I got a small quarantine package where they gave me some masks, a thermometer, and some disinfectant.

At least the food they gave me made me take the first baby steps into the Korean culture. I got to try out a lot of different Korean food during my 7 days in isolation. Some foods were very good, some not so much. I was amazed at the variety of food and sauces they gave me but was also dis- appointed at how much plastic waste it created.

I mostly spent my days lying in bed watching YouTube, preparing and doing my SEP over Zoom and talking with my buddy about the next steps to take. On my last day of the quarantine, I also needed to sign up for classes and it’s on a first come first served basis. Without the quarantine, my buddy would have taken me to a PC Room with faster internet since sadly not everyone gets into all the classes they signed up for. I was one of the luckier ones though that got into all the classes I wanted to even with bad Wi-Fi connections inside my quarantine place. But as soon as the clock hit 10 am and I clicked on the button, I never thought the waiting line would be as long. I found myself at the 4’000th place! It kind of felt like getting a con- cert ticket instead of a place for your course.

Quarantine Rules in Korea

After a month of living in Korea the quarantine rules were lifted, which made me a bit frustrated since I paid so much money for my quarantine place. And with time, the mandatory mask slowly got less strict too. At first, the thought of not wearing a mask outside was unimaginable since everyone was very strict with the mask rules. Even with the ban lifted people mostly wore masks outside. Hearing about how the mask mandate got lifted in Switzerland felt like an unachievable dream in Korea. I was really surprised how people followed the rules so diligently without any big complaints.

Part III: School at KARTS

Moving into the dormitory and the first week of school

After quarantine had ended, I had about a week left before I needed to move into the dormitory. I used that time to explore and meet up with fellow exchange students. On the 28th of February, it was time for the big move- in. The whole dormitory was packed with people and suitcases. The dormitory consists of 4 floors. The ground floor has the main hall and the security and administration office. On the second floor, there are boys-only rooms. The 3rd and 4th floors are for girls. It was forbidden to go to other people’s rooms and to visit the opposite sex’s floor. They were also very strict about not letting outsiders into the building. The dorm room itself was smaller than I thought. You will have a roommate, probably from the same department as you and most likely also an exchange student.

You get a bathroom to share for you and your roommate. The kitchen is shared with the other students from the floor. In the basement, you can find the laundry room and also a workout room, which was sadly closed most of the time due to corona.

The next day was March the 1st which was an official holiday. So my buddy used this opportunity to show me and my roommate around the campus. Thanks to that, I had an easier time navigating through the school on my own.

The first week was held only over zoom since corona was very much a topic then and the classes were consisting of only introductions. During this week we also had a chance to change or drop classes without any consequences. Otherwise, you had only a month to drop out of a class without getting an F as a grade. I learned during the first week that there was another 3D class that might have been interesting for me but I was afraid of the bureaucratic mess, so I let it be.

Tuesdays

My week started on a Tuesday with my earliest class at 9 am. I had Korean Art History class, where we learned what happened in the Korean art community but also politically after the Korean war in 1953 up until the late 90s. It was one of the two classes which were taught in English. Every other weekend, we also took a small trip to a museum with the class. It was a nice experience to learn more about the art history of Korea. Through this class, I was able to understand where Korea was standing with its art history and even to some degree politically. The teacher was young and had experience as a gallery curator. So she had some inside knowledge about some of the museums and artworks. We even had a small zoom meeting with an artist from Denmark who talked about how he works and how you can open your own gallery. At the end of the class, there was a written exam where we had to write everything we knew about the two artworks. The class took 2 hours and afterwards you had lunch in the cafeteria.

The lunch menu was 3’500 won (1’000 won are about 0.72 Swiss francs) and it included rice, soup and a Korean dish. The Korean dish mostly consisted of one to two vegetable options and one meat or fish. Through the cafeteria, I was able to taste more traditional Korean food. One of my classmates described it as typical Korean High school food.

After lunch, my next class started at 2 pm. It was a first-year class and for 3 hours we learned how TvPaint worked and how we can find our style of animation. The class was thought by 이규태 (Lee Kyutae), a famous Korean illustrator. I was a bit taken aback when everyone was flustered when he first entered the classroom. Some people even went up to him to ask for a signature. But he was a soft-spoken kind teacher. The class was taught only in Korean so sadly his English wasn’t the best and we sometimes had communication difficulties because of the language barrier. But a classmate, one of the two people who could speak English in the first year, helped me with translation here and there. We did a few animation exercises but not in a theoretical way. For example, the teacher just said we had to animate some- one throwing a ball and that was it. It was a fun way to just experiment with animation and style but there was no theory on the 12 principles of animation.

Everyone in the class was animating to some degree very well. Some were even animating for the first time and went with only intuition. I guess the first year is only about moving images without learning the theory behind them. I also asked a second-year student if they ever learned the principles, but she said that they mostly learned them through exercises. I was very taken aback since the school was expecting all the animation students to animate a minute-long animation in the first year, in the second a 2-minute one, 3rd 3 minutes and 4th 4 minutes. It was crazy that they needed to do that all alone, without knowing the theory and just going with intuition. And the most shocking thing was that most of them didn’t stick to the time minimum but sometimes did even the double amount of time they needed to. So obviously the quality of animation dropped but I was still impressed that they would go to this length to tell a story of theirs.

The class with Lee Kyutae prepares the students for this big challenge but also have them be more open to different styles you can animate in. The goal of the class was to animate one scene from the 1-minute animation. Since I was there for only one semester I didn’t have to do the 1-minute animation. So I just created a story and fully animated a 10-second sequence with colours and everything only to find out there had been a translation error. I only needed to roughly animate a scene and obviously, I overdid it without knowing.

Wednesdays

Wednesday was one of the calmer days when I had an hour of Korean language class at around 1:30 pm. So I found myself quite often in a café taking the class over zoom. The class itself wasn’t that challenging because I took a level easier than where my Korean was. It was a great way of repeating the basics again but not starting from the beginning like other exchange students did. After class, I either explored new parts of Seoul or would work on my homework for Thursday.

Thursdays

At 10 am on every Thursday the “Concept and Expression” class would start. It was another first-year class and fully taught in Korean. I would describe that class as a mixture of Christian’s theory lessons, and experimental Animation with Storytelling class. Each week we would learn about different animation methods and concepts such as morphing, pixilation, stop motion and much more. We also learned how to observe and capture various processes in creative ways. The end goal of this class was to animate sand and paper stop-motion videos and make a physical picture book. I took this chance and made a very personal book where I hold on to all the memories I made there.

The next class on this day was “Human Body Drawing”: another first-year-class and fully taught in Korean. Thankfully it consisted mostly of just sitting in front of models and drawing them. Through the consistent observations and the (half) translated feedback from the teacher, I could detect the improvement at the end of the semester. Every other week we would have a zoom

meeting where the teacher would talk about other artists or comment on everyone’s work. Sadly those lessons were the hardest ones for me since no one could translate for us exchange students over zoom.

Thursdays would be the longest day for me since after the second class I would have one more from 5 pm until 7 pm. The class’ misleading name was “Language and Culture of Korea, Japan and China”. We did everything except what the title was implying. It turned out to be an introductory course to “Metaverse”.

The teacher was very excited about the different metaverses and taught us how to use two of them. We also learned how to import assets through Unity into the metaverse programs. Though the metaverse wasn’t in the class description we had a few lessons where we learned about the Korean culture through the presentations of the two Korean students that were in the class.

Did I mention that the class was only consisting of me, my roommate (another exchange student) and two Korean students? Thankfully the teacher could speak English and would often explain something to us and then again in Korean for the other two. There were quite a few awkward moments when we did our final project together. Nonetheless I had a great time with all of them. We even went out twice for dinner with the teach- er and had the opportunity to try out VR glasses. Even if it was a late class, it was light and fun.

Fridays

On Friday morning I had my last class of the week. It was the only second-year class and the only 3D one. It was again a Korean-taught class but since Maya was in English it was easy to follow the teacher. The teacher would record his class over zoom, in case you couldn’t make it to the real class or to help you out with the homework (which consist- ed mostly of finishing what we started in class).

I signed up for that class because it was called a “3D Animation” course. Little did I know that it was “only” an introduction to Maya and all we did was modelling. Even if the class wasn’t what I was expecting, I still learned a lot about Maya. I feel more comfortable using the program now and can even model it. But I did have an advantage in the class since I already knew about 3D in Blender and was able to follow the teacher easily even if he spoke Korean.

What shocked me the most was the speed in this class. We would sometimes learn about one topic such as retopology and in the next class, about texturing and the week after how to do lighting. If I didn’t know already the basics of all of that I would have definitely been lost in that course. So naturally, the end goal for this class was to model your own character in Maya. I chose to go with an easier route and took the astronaut character that I already once modelled in Blender. It turned out it wasn’t that easy after all and I faced quite some difficulties. After the class, my long week- end started and I was able to travel and do more sightseeing.

Saturdays to Mondays

Since school started on Tuesday I had a very long weekend. I used that opportunity to travel to cities further away from Seoul. I went to Sokcho, an east-coast city where I went to the beach and the mountains nearby. On another weekend I went to the International Film Festival in Busan. I fell in love with the city so much that I went back after my school semester ended. I also took a day trip to Incheon where I visited the Wolmido theme park and the China-Town nearby. Some of my friends suggested visiting the San museum in Wonju. There are many beautiful cities outside of Seoul, I wished I had more time to visit them. If I didn’t go out of Seoul, I mostly went to cafes or parks.

What I learned about KARTS

Unlike here in HSLU, at KARTS Animation department only speaks English. The students nor the teachers are confident in that language, so if you find classmates that can speak it, you should be grateful. But from what I heard from other exchange students was that the fine art department had mostly English lessons and people there were more likely to speak it. I think the multimedia department also offers some English classes. They might even have some 3d classes that could be interesting to look into.

If you inscribe yourself into the animation department, you might not find some classes, such as Korean Art History, sports classes, traditional painting, ceramics or even glassblowing. Some of them are very popular classes and might be hard to get a place in them. A few of them are also in the Fine Arts department, a reason why they aren’t listed on the course sign-up page. If you want to take part in some of those courses and can’t find them, you should ask your coordinator to sign you up for them.

How to make friends

I’m going to be honest, I’m probably not the best person to give you a guide on how to make friends but I did learn a few things on the way in this journey.

Be friendly to your buddy! I know it sounds dumb but they are like your parent during school. If something goes wrong or if you are in a weird situation they will come and help you out. I can’t thank my buddy enough for who helped me try to answer all of my questions. He even helped me with bank and cred- it card problems! Thanks to him I also made quite a few more friends and got invited to their homes. I learned about their culture while they learned about mine. It was a nice exchange of knowledge and so much fun getting to know each other. And if your buddy doesn’t take the initiative, do it yourself and ask them to show you around campus! Ask them out for lunch or go to their favourite café.

Even if it’s awkward, still try to talk in Korean. I am guilty of not doing it often in class but outside of it, I tried my best to order in restaurants only in Korean. I also quickly realised that Koreans are more forgiving if they see you trying to speak their language. I had quite a few awkward conversations but most of the time the people were understanding and trying their best to explain something to me. If nothing worked out, there was always the trusty friend “Papago”. Likewise, if you find an English-speaking classmate, don’t let them go! Be their best friend, because not a lot of people speak English and even fewer are willing to translate for you during class. I had around 2-3 people who spoke pretty well English and they tried to help me out in class.

Make the first move to hang out with your classmates. They can be very shy and might not initiate any activities at all. Most of them were hanging out in their groups or just working the whole time. If the class decides to do some- thing together go and participate in it!

Also, a great tip is to connect with people that have already visited HSLU or want to visit it. My friend group got so much larger by finding people that have gone to the animation department here at HSLU and it was easier to connect. It was interesting to hear how they experienced Switzerland through their eyes while I told my experiences of Korea through mine.

How the school system works

Unlike here in our school where we start our studies in September, in Korea they start their studies in March. So our first semester is their second and vice versa. This was a huge factor of con- fusion for me in the beginning since I expected the second year would have already started using Maya and would do cool stuff such as motion capture and learn about production pipelines. So if you are interested in 3D and al- ready know Maya, you might not want to choose your fourth semester as an exchange.

The official end of the semester was 26.6. The final grades were collect- ed around that time too so until then teachers might still give you homework or you need to finish some assignments. My official last day of class was 17.6. You can find your grades on Nuri (the school website) afterwards or get them from your coordinator.

If the student council asks for money at the beginning of the semester be- cause of guest lecturers make sure to ask your buddy and /or coordinator if you need to pay for it. Since these are fees for a whole year and exchange students might not need to pay for them. The only class that I needed to pay extra (about 40-50k won) was the human body drawing class.

Part IV : Living in Korea

Cultural Differences

When I first arrived in Seoul I knew some of the cultural differences thanks to the Internet. But some stuff still surprised me after actually seeing it in my everyday life.

I knew that when you greet someone you normally bow to them. But I was taken aback that even my classmates did that to me. In the first few weeks, I was waiting for the other person to bow first, just to see if I also need to do it. So my bowing came in after a second. But at the end of my semester, I caught myself bowing every time I greeted someone I wasn’t friends with.

Some other small things that made me surprised were the silence inside the subway or how dark the windows were in cars. During rush hour people at the subway would bump into you and won’t even apologize. Or when you pay you should hand the money with both hands. These small differences were very noticeable at the beginning of my exchange but they slowly integrated into my life until, in the end, I didn’t even notice them anymore.

Tips and Tricks to Survive Korea

Korea LOVES their apps and there are some essential ones you should download before leaving. First, get Kakaotalk. It’s their version of Whatsapp and they use it for school group chats or you can even get your movie tickets delivered over Kakaotalk. The next one is Naver Map. I heard that Google Maps doesn’t always work well in Korea so they have their version of it too. It doesn’t only help you navigate, you can also see subway and bus connections and find reviews and pictures of cafes or restaurants. The last app you should download is Papago. It is a translation app and its translation from English to Korean is more accurate than google translate.

If you are ever unsure where to go or which cafes are worth visiting I recommend going on Tiktok. I discovered a lot of places thanks to that app and added a lot of them to Naver Map. Here are some of my saved places:

Here is my take on walking around as a foreigner: Don’t try to blend in. You will always be seen as a foreigner so be yourself and don’t feel intimidated by anyone else. You might as well use the foreigner pass, too if you have to.

A tip that can make your life a bit easier: learn how to order food in Korean. I mostly tried doing it and the ordering process will go way smoother. Especially if you want to eat at an authentic Korean restaurant the waiter might not understand English.

If you struggle to make friends in class, with other exchange students or just want to get out of the KARTS bubble you might want to try out downloading bumble. Yeah, you can use the dating function but there is also a BFF version. I met up with one or two people from there and it can be a great opportunity to exchange cultures with other foreigners or even locals.

When I first found myself in a position where I wanted to cook something, I quickly realized that I didn’t know any places to buy food except for convenience stores. So to save you from this exact question here are some recommendations: The typical supermarket chains are Emart or Lotte Store. But there are also markets near Dolgoji station which is near the school. One of the markets is directly next to exits 8 and 7 called “Jillo Groceries Mart”. Another one is nearby Sangwolgok Sub- way Station called “Hwanggeum Mart Sangwolgok Branch”

If you want to ride the subway or a bus you need to buy a T-Money card. These are found in any convenience store and the only way to fill them up is with CASH. Besides using it as a ticket you can also use it as a credit card in typical convenience stores like “CU” and “GS25”.

People always wonder how much the exchange semester costs, so here are some price points: because I bought my plane ticket during Covid I got my round ticket for around 800 CHF. The quarantine cost me also about 780 CHF. The dormitory was 600 CHF. Subway and bus were 1’250 Won and depending on how far you would travel they would add about 100-500 Won on top. You can find restaurant food for under 10 CHF easily but buying groceries just like fruits or vegetables can get as or even more expensive than in Switzerland. Clothes are also Swiss prices, but I do recommend checking out second-hand stores. They have good quality and cheap prices.

The Bureaucratic Process

Korea can be very strict with online shopping. So if you plan to buy stuff over the internet or even just order food, you might need to follow the steps below:

  • Get an appointment for the ARC (Alien Registration Card) be- fore you leave for Korea since the waiting time is around one month. This is the staying permit that you need to get as soon as you stay there for longer than 90 days.
  • Get a USIM (Korean Phone number) to make your life easier: I used Woori Mobile and Trazy. There are also other companies such as Kimchimobile. Because of quarantine and other complications, I ordered a USIM from Trazy and had it shipped to Switzerland. Connect your ARC as soon as you have it with your phone number.
  • Having a global Credit card can help you with restaurants, cafes and shops but most online shops and food delivery apps don’t accept foreign cards.
  • That’s why you should get as soon as possible a Korean bank account with your ARC and Korean phone number. The dormitory deposit of 50k won will be transferred to the bank account, without it you might lose money through bank transfer. Here is a website to get more in- formation about banks in Korea: https://bankmeister.com/korea/ explore
  • I used KB Bank (https://bankmeister.com/korea/bank/kb#tab_fee) since it was the closest to school. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any employees that spoke English, so it was nerve-wracking to sign a lot of documents without knowing what you sign up for. But at least there was no fee for opening or closing an account. It was easier than I thought since I only showed up with a translated sentence: “I want to open an account” and with my arc & phone number. That was it!

Part V: My Thoughts

Throughout this semester I learned so much about myself and the Korean culture. I figured out my limits and learned to be more independent. I also stepped out of my comfort zone quite a lot and tried to experience as much stuff as possible. Through all this traveling throughout Seoul, my sense of direction also got way better. I started to have a mental map of where stuff was and felt more and more comfortable traveling alone.

I never thought I would make so many new friends there, too. Thanks to them I got to learn more about the Korean culture and they became dear friends that I would love to meet again. I also made some great friends with other ex- change students. I was amazed at how many connections you could make as soon as you stepped out a little. Especially at the beginning of my exchange semester, every connection counted. Thanks to the taxi driver who brought me from the airport to the PCR test to my quarantine I got to meet a friend of mine who showed me how the subway system worked. Thanks to the exchange student at HSLU from KARTS I met my buddy and his friends. I realized that everything was connected with each other and that you should hold people tight because you will never know who will help you out.

Besides the life lessons I learned, I also got very comfortable using Maya. Be- fore all I did was animate in it but after the Maya class, I was able to model in it too, which gave me a sense of com- fort to work in that program. My human body drawings also improved quite a lot during the 4 months I was there. Through the weekly exercises, I did feel how much faster I got and how my lines became more and more confident. I also learned to approach storytelling in different ways thanks to the “Concept and Expression” class. Even if I knew most of the themes we had during the lessons, I was always surprised by what my classmates came up with for each homework. I got inspired by looking at their work and started to incorporate their way of thinking into my work.

If you would ask me if I would do the exchange again, my answer would be: yes, definitely! But I’m not sure if it is the best school if you want to learn 3D. There were around 2 more 3D classes in the animation department that I somehow didn’t choose but otherwise, KARTS is very 2D oriented. The language barrier made it harder to keep up with class and understand what the teacher was telling. It was also easy to feel isolated just because you couldn’t participate in the conversations or discussions. But I still learned a lot in those classes and the teacher and the students were all so nice and welcoming, even if they were afraid to talk in English. But I also made great friends in those classes and had a lot of fun learning and experimenting with new stuff. I would recommend writing an e-mail to KARTS and asking what your options as a 3D artist are. Maybe the multimedia department could be more suitable for you or even Fine Arts, where they speak mostly in English.

When coming to Korea I felt alone. I didn’t know anybody and was afraid to go walk around alone in the big city. Now I have a bunch of people that will welcome me if I go back and I feel at ease traveling alone in the big city. It already feels like my second home.